Indonesian Government Cracks down on Gay Emoji

The Indonesian government is giving company’s like LINE, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. a choice: remove gay emoji from your messaging apps, or get banned from the country.

“Such contents are not allowed in Indonesia based on our cultural law and the religious norms and the operators must respect that,” a government spokesman told AFP. “Those things might be considered normal in some Western countries, while in Indonesia it’s practically impossible.”

According to Quartz, LINE, which has an estimated 30 million users in Indonesia, has already dropped same-sex emoji from it’s app.

“LINE regrets the incidents of some stickers which are considered sensitive by many people,” the company said in a statement.